Is your home really green? Earth Day is April 22nd, and you can celebrate the day by making some earth-friendly changes in your home. These improvements are simple, inexpensive and easy to do (I promise). Use your eco powers for good and gain some money savings at the same time.
Search and Destroy
Find all of those areas in your home that waste energy by forcing you to heat or cool the entire neighborhood. Go through your home, one room or area at a time. Find and seal cracks and air leaks with caulk, weather stripping and other products made especially for sealing the drafts. Don’t forget the power outlets in your home. A lot of warm (or cool) air escapes those spaces. You can buy foam insulating plates to lock out the energy loss.
Have an Energy Audit
Invite a professional to come in to your home and find energy-wasting issues that may be lurking in your home. A professional can use advanced methods and equipment for energy-loss detection. One example is a little device that uses thermographic scans that detect air leaks using infrared technology. It measures changes in wall temperature. Another test, called the blower door test, uses a large fan to pull air out of your home. This makes it easier to find hidden drafts.
Hiring a professional energy auditor may cost a few hundred dollars, but you can easily save that much in energy costs once you fix your homes inefficiency issues. Also, check with your local utility company. It may offer a free or low-cost energy audit of your home.
Take Advantage of Technology
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, we could cut 80 percent of our heating, cooling and lightening costs in our homes and in our places of work just by using new technology that we can easily purchase off of the shelf in stores. One example of this technology is the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). Just remember that CFLs need to be recycled. Ikea is one company that will take care of these bulbs for you.
Mary Ann Romans writes about everything related to saving money in the Frugal Blog, technology in the Computing Blog, and creating a home in the Home Blog. You can read more of her articles by clicking here.
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